Gorilla’s Guides

These are the main security incidents reported in the independent Iraqi news agency Aswat Al Iraq in Arabic early evening January 5th 2007 translated and summarised from Arabic.

Anbar

Fallujah:

Incidents reported from Fallujah.

American Tank Destroyed:

 The American Army of Occupation admitted today, Friday, that a tank had been destroyed by an explosion in Fallujah, Anbar. The tank was part of a patrol that tanks and Hummer’s that was into Arbaieen street. The patrol was ambushed and the tank was set ablaze by the resistance figthers using an RPG. Streets in the neighbourhood were sealed off by the occupation forces following the attack. No reports of casulaties as yet.

Link to Aswat al Iraq [Arabic]

Iraqi Tank Destroyed:

 An armoured patrol of Iraqi troops loyal to the green zone government was attacked by resistance fighters using a roadside bomb which they detonated as the patrol passed. The tank was destroyed. It is known that there some of the Iraqi soldiers were killed and others wounded but figures are not yet known. The patrol called for help from the American occupation forces in the city who sealed off the neighbourhood.

Earlier in the day an armoured American Army of occupation patrol was attacked by resistance fighters. An American tank was destroyed during that attack.

Link to Aswat al Iraq [Arabic]

Diyala

Incidents reported from Diyala

Khalis :

Two civilians have been killed and two others when their vilage was attacked by an armed group attacked a village in the south of Khalis. The district has been the scene of several security incidents recently most notably:

• The abduction and killing of 9 construction labourers.
• The abduction and slaughter of 7 pilgrims return from Meccah including Haji Sheikh Ghazi Al Dulaimi, one of the signatories of the Mecca concord to outlaw the shedding of Iraqi blood.

Link to Aswat al Iraq [Arabic]

Baqubah:

Two green zone government Army Iraqi soldiers died in a bombing attack on their patrol on the main road north of Baqubah.

Source: Aswat al Iraq

Babil (Babylon Governorate)

Incidents reported from Babil.

Hilla (Al Hillah) American Base Attacked

The American Army of Occupation base underwent a bombardment of 7 mortar shells according to Iraqi green zone government police.

Source: Aswat al Iraq

Hilla (Al Hillah) Arrests

Green zone government Interior Ministry forces (Scorpion Brigade) claim to have arrested 4 armed men one of whom is suspected of being a member of Tawhid.

Source: Aswat al Iraq

English Language Reports From Aswat Al Iraq

This is Aswat Al Iraq’s English translation of a feature previously published in Arabic.

Iraqi expatriates watch Saddam hang in Internet cafés

Cairo, Jan 5, (VOI) – With news leaks on the imminent execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many Iraqis abroad rushed to Internet cafés to watch the procedure.

Since late 1970s Iraqis started to go West seeking political asylum and the trend flourished in the 1980s.

The embargo in the aftermath of the invasion of Kuwait added economic reasons for immigration that now there are about four million Iraqi immigrants, according to UN figures, and most of them live in western Europe, the Americas and Australia.

Chat rooms, however, linked the home-sick Iraqi expatriates together.

Before the recent war on Iraq in 2003, most Iraqi chat rooms saw a lot of controversy over international intervention to unseat Saddam regime.
As soon as the appellate body in Iraq upheld on December 26, 2006 the death sentences against Saddam, his step-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, the former chief of the Iraqi intelligence, and Awwad al-Bandar, the former president of the Revolutionary Court, the issue became the dominant topic in Iraqi chat rooms.

In the “Iraqi Parliament” chat room, joined mostly by Shiites and Kurds who speak fluent Arabic, Abu Malak, who resides in the United States, said he would head with his family to the White House and raise a “thank-you” placard.

One Iraqi wanted to arrange the trip to the White House with Abu Malak, while another objects any thanks to America, which, he said, has supported Saddam until the year 1990.

In another room, Shiite Kurds exchanged congratulations. A comment that deemed Saddam a hero made a participant angrily lamenting the death of her two brothers, who were executed along with thousands others during a campaign of forced relocation in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In a chat room called “the Iraqi Diwan”, which introduces itself as a secular liberal room, participants rejected Saddam’s execution, which, they believe, would fan the flames of sectarian division.

“The Shiite parties will have the execution as an achievement for them. This would be followed by an account-settling vendetta and exaggeration about how the Shiites were unjustly treated, not to mention the growing influence of the clerics and Iran,” said Samer, a participant in the Diwan room.

Qader, who has not joined an Iraqi chat room for months, appeared hours before the execution in search of someone to share the moment with. Qader said the Iraqis split over the execution and even over the way to carry out the death sentence.

As news reports that the execution of the former president will take place before 6:00 a.m. on December 30, 2006 flowed, two chat rooms registered the highest rates of visitors, reaching 250.

Source: Aswat al Iraq

BAGHDAD, 4 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - Like other minority members in Iraq, Mardon Matrood, a 44-year-old Assyrian shopkeeper in Baghdad, has had enough of the country’s sectarian violence.

“Minorities in Iraq are targeted by insurgents and militias, who want us out of the country as they promote what they call the ‘cleansing of Iraq, of non-Muslim communities’,” said Matrood who is living with his family of six in an abandoned government building.

Four months ago Matrood’s family failed to pay a ransom of US $50,000 to kidnappers who had abducted his nephew. The nephew was later found dead.

BAGHDAD, 4 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - “I’m 29-years-old. I’ve been handicapped since 18 January, 2006, when I lost my leg in an explosion while I was working as a waiter  in a Baghdad restaurant.

On the same day I lost my brother Muhammad, who was working with me at the restaurant. He was only 19-years-old and didn’t survive his injuries.

In March of last year, I lost my mother, Suheiya, and my father Dawood. They were killed inside our home. A militia member asked them to leave the neighbourhood but they refused because they were too old. They were shown no mercy and were brutally shot dead.

In addition to all this, I lost my only uncle, Abu Omar, his wife, and their four children, while they were trying to flee the country to Syria. Insurgents stopped them, accused my uncle of being a traitor and shot dead the entire family.